


apnea

by chidorinnn



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Illnesses, Panic Attacks, s01e09: Yuki Was My First Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 02:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19123150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn
Summary: Yuki… collapsed. Perhaps, in another world, it would have been easier to understand what exactly had happened that day — maybe it would’ve been clearer, that it was the fever and a lingering childhood illness that had made him collapse. Nursing him back to health, then, would’ve been the simplest thing in the world.But that’s not it — it had been too sudden, something so profoundly out of the norm that it brought Kyo and Hatsuharu’s fight to a screeching halt. Yuki had been fine, competing against Kyo in that race. He had been fine, when Hatsuharu had first interfered.





	apnea

She might not know what an asthma attack looks like, but Tohru would like to think that she can recognize a panic attack.

She’s only seen it once before — one week in middle school when Uo-chan’s father hadn’t come home for three days straight, and no one could reach him by phone or by email. Uo-chan had curled up by the table in her apartment, her face buried in her knees as air was squeezed out of her in shrill, harsh gasps and tears streamed without end down her cheeks. There was nothing to do but simply sit there with her, and wait for it to end — for the tears to run dry, for her breathing to even out — and not one bit of it would have brought her father home.

It served no purpose, except to tire Uo-chan out — and Tohru would never hold this against her friend, no matter how embarrassed Uo-chan was later, after the whole ordeal was over, but it was hard to smile and be polite to her friend’s father, when he eventually returned. It’s still hard, sometimes, even though Uo-chan’s long since forgiven him. She’s lucky, to have never panicked like Uo-chan. Panic for her feels more like lost appetite and skipped meals, headaches and lingering weakness in her limbs because everything needs to happen  _just so_.

Yuki… collapsed. Perhaps, in another world, it would have been easier to understand what exactly had happened that day — maybe it would’ve been clearer, that it was the fever and a lingering childhood illness that had  _made_  him collapse. Nursing him back to health, then, would’ve been the simplest thing in the world.

But that’s not it — it had been too sudden, something so profoundly out of the norm that it brought Kyo and Hatsuharu’s fight to a screeching halt. Yuki had been fine, competing against Kyo in that race. He had been fine, when Hatsuharu had first interfered. It wasn’t until Tohru had talked to him that—

—he frowns, turning onto his side. He coughs, and it’s so much harsher than it was this morning — as if each one is tearing his chest apart. She wonders if it makes her strong, to be able to push aside her suspicions of how this happened in favor of helping Yuki now, where he needs her. She wonders if her parents would be proud, when the coughing fit stretches from a few seconds to more than a minute and she does not cry.

Slowly, it settles. He looks up at her, eyes barely cracked open, and says, “Sorry, Miss Honda… I think I need…”

“Oh!” She springs out of her seat, and sits at the edge of his bed. They haven’t figured it out all the way yet, how much physical contact is necessary to trigger a transformation — but nothing happens, when Yuki grabs her arm and braces himself against it as he slowly levers himself upright. It’s not the first time they’ve done this today, but it was easier, faster before.

He inhales deeply, and jerks away abruptly when it triggers another coughing fit. This one lasts longer, and it leaves him nearly gagging by the end. There’s a sharp sting in her eyes, and she turns away before he can see — maybe she’s not so strong after all.

“It’s sounds worse than it actually is,” he whispers hoarsely.

“Still…” she says, and hates the way her voice shakes. It’s not panic like it was for Uo-chan and maybe Yuki, but there’s still  _something_ that cinches around her lungs like a vice. She knows, logically, that colds do not usually develop fatal complications — not even for people like Yuki, with a lingering childhood illness that maybe drove him to collapse. She knows, logically, that the last thing he needs right now is this irrational worry of hers, that something will go wrong because she did not do  _enough_  when it mattered.

—still, when she reaches over to grab the glass of water on his nightstand, her hands do not shake. She can still hold it steady for him, as he cups his hands around hers and drinks from it, and she does not flinch when he rests his head on her shoulder and she can feel the heat of his fever through her cardigan.

(… he was fine before she’d asked him about Kyo and Hatsuharu, wasn’t he?)

“I’ve had worse,” he says, smiling. “This is nothing.”

“It’s  _not_  nothing…” she mumbles. Perhaps, on another day when she’s stronger, she wouldn’t lean against him, too. He needs her more than she needs him, and yet she can’t help but rest her head against his. She wonders if, maybe, Hatsuharu had done something like this for him before, and if Yuki would have let him. Maybe it means something, that he’s comfortable enough with her to ask this much of her — proof that she’s made the right choice, by wanting to stay here, and that it’s really okay for her to call him by his given name.

“You’ll tell me, won’t you?” she asks. “If… if it ever gets to be too much.” He stills, and she wonders if she should say more. “Too much” of  _what_? She hardly knows herself.

“I can’t promise that, Miss Honda,” he says anyway. “But… I’ll try.”

—and she still doesn’t know what it is that bothered him so much — what exactly she, or maybe Hatsuharu, or maybe Kyo had said to make him panic so badly. She wants it to never happen again — or if it must, for him to tell her so that she can do more to help him — but just  _wanting_ has never been good enough.

“It’s… not a bother,” she says. “Just… I’m here, okay? Whenever you need me.” There’s a swell of heat that rises to her face, too sudden for it to have come from Yuki’s fever — maybe it was too much, too soon, for her to promise something like that to him.

She’s not sure how she wants him to respond — but he exhales slowly, his eyes sliding closed as he leans into her a little more. His hand lies limply on top of hers as his breathing evens out — and she hopes he doesn’t mind, when she flips her palm upward and entwines her fingers with his.


End file.
